After a 2 month break, here I am trying to recall what the heck has happened since my last update (it’s a blur!). Ok, so I have learned that babies change a lot in 2 months time! Adriana has been slowly transforming from a baby into a little girl (ok, not really but you know what I mean…), especially over the past couple weeks. Her personality is emerging rapidly. It’s been the most amazing thing to experience! She’s so squirmy, coy, goofy, curious, and can be very serious and focused too. I know every parent says this but I honestly fall more in love with her every day. I miss her at night when she sleeps (but revel in some alone time too, of course). She’s the only person I ever greet with a huge smile and open arms at 6am no matter how bleary-eyed I may be. What she does to my heart is just beyond.
Biggest news in the past week – we have an “army crawler” on our hands. Shit is gettin’ real! It started when my mom was here visiting and we were all screaming with joy (or terror…haha) as she scooted across the room. If you haven’t seen a baby army crawl you must watch a video on Youtube. It’s equally hilarious yet fascinating all at once. I don’t even think I can army crawl if I tried. Mad skills those babies have. We’re full into the “can’t take our eyes off her” stage which I’m pretty sure never ends? She’s also sitting up unassisted now after many weeks of toppling over. Whenever she sits up she looks like such a big girl!
We had a babyproofing company come over for a consultation a month ago. We’re going to order a few gates and some cupboard locks this week.
Adriana went through a week of saying BA BA BA BA BA BA BA. It was hilarious and we somehow caught it on video. Pretty much right after we shot the video, she stopped and has only let out a few ba ba’s since. She’s onto us! I’m sure it’ll return though. One thing that hasn’t stopped is my embarrassing parental video commentary. Do you know how much my sister and I teased my dad for doing that exact same thing in all of our childhood videos? Yea, now it’s me.
“ba ba ba ba”
“Oh! and then what happened???”
Her laugh has gone from a gasping-for-air noise to more of a little girl giggle now and then. She will laugh like crazy if we make weird faces at her. She loves to make “who” noises a lot still. Our little owl. She is making this “poof” noise recently like she’s blowing a puff of air out of her mouth and she’s also rolling her tongue in all these crazy positions and clicking it. Oh and still very much doing “The Mariah” squeaks!
I’m still nursing on demand. I absolutely cherish our breastfeeding time together. She’s gotten so silly during feedings though! Most of the time (during the day) she just pokes my face, squirms, and pulls my hair!! lol. As I mentioned, we introduced solids after 6 months (homemade veggie and fruit purees), but she still hasn’t shown too much interest yet. She still has a bit of a gag reflex every now and then so we’re not forcing it. I know babies all take to food at different times so I’m not too worried about it and she’s gaining weight steadily. She also still won’t take a bottle or sippy cup yet – a boob girl through and through! If we have another baby in the future, I’ll most likely try to introduce the bottle a bit earlier next time, but in A’s case we waited until 8 weeks because she had so many latching issues. There’s no right or wrong answer, I suppose! Everyone asks me if it’s hard with her not taking a bottle or eating solids yet, but it’s actually gotten so much easier than it used to be (just like many of you told me it would). Her feeds now are so short – she’s done in around 5 minutes (a bit longer overnight or before naps, but that’s because I let her sleep on me a bit). Because I work from home it’s not a big issue, but if I worked out of the house it would be a much more pressing issue to figure out. So I can’t complain. We’re still trying the solids regularly and I’m sure she will come around on her own timeline.
Her sleep is about the same as my last update. She’s still going down around 6:30-7pm. Some nights it takes her a while to fall asleep, others not too long. If she’s not super sleepy she will just play in her crib until she falls asleep (she loves her musical aquarium). Her first wake up of the night tends to be around 2am lately and then she has been waking up around 5:30-6am. She seems to have shifted to an earlier wake up time now that the mornings are brighter. Some mornings I feed her and she’ll go back to sleep, but it’s rare. I’ve been asked if she’s sleeping through the night yet. Well, she has slept through the night twice so far! This gives me hope, hah. But it’s not consistent by any means yet.
She is getting a lot of use out of her toys now and is really interactive with them. If the toy or stuffy has EYES she loves it even more and will just stare into it’s eyes with a big smile. So silly. She LOVES her exersaucer now.
My mom came to visit us around Mother’s Day for the week. It was such a great visit! They hadn’t seen each other since Christmas, but she took to her Mimi right away. Eric and I also had our first date night since pre-baby. It was awesome…and needed. We cleaned up pretty well…who knew! I put Adriana down for the night and then we headed out. Then we later found out that she was quite the little monkey for her Mimi! On Mother’s Day, Eric asked what I wanted and I said a home-cooked meal would be amazing since I rarely get a break from recipe development. He treated my mom and I to a huge brunch featuring 5 of my recipes from the next Oh She Glows cookbook. He was nervous about pulling it off, but he nailed it. We were in heaven with all this great food!
We had a great long weekend including celebrating my first birthday as a mama, and a great visit yesterday with family at my Aunt and Uncles. We got to meet the newest member of the family too – my Aunt’s baby girl who is 5.5 months younger than Adriana. Someone was pretty taken by her and kept wanting to chew her tiny baby hands! lol.
Loves: Walks, silly faces, music (especially Eric on guitar), Itsy Bitsy Spider song (her fav), other babies, animals (Sketchie is her favourite thing in the world), bath times (really into splashing the water right now), being outside, new places/people watching, discovering new objects, screaming at Sketchie, being tickled, chewing everything, her musical keyboard and stackable toys, “blowing raspberries”.
Dislikes: Waking up grumpy and getting a diaper changed, not getting enough sleep, sitting or being held in one spot for too long (or being in a car seat when she just wants to squirm), hiccups, getting dressed.
What else? Oh still no teeth yet!
One of my biggest lessons of motherhood so far: I’ve realized that I really don’t give a rats ass what some of the guilt-trippy baby experts tell me I “should” be doing (aside from actual evidence-based medical recommendations from our pediatrician, of course). I remember when A was a newborn I would feel guilt after reading certain baby books (like the ones that say never nurse them to sleep or never do x, y, z because you will form a life-long bad habit…ugh), but as we’ve become more comfortable in our roles Eric and I have both realized that we’re doing what’s right for our family and that’s what matters. Is the baby fed, safe, warm, loved, and happy? Well keep on chugging along. No guilt required.
Love your honesty, openness, and just being “real”. I’m 29 weeks pregnant and love reading these updates for a peak into the mommy world which will be a reality very soon. Thank you for sharing and tell those naysayers everywhere to take a hike and let us enjoy our happy, healthy online community!
Lucky girl! For Mother’s Day, my husband tore a picture out of our 18 month old’s coloring book (an old picture, might I add, that I helped her draw…in fact it said “Mommy loves Fiona” on it), scribbled “Happy Mother’s Day” on it and handed it to me.
I love him, but I would have traded him for Eric and his feast on Mother’s Day. ;-)
Hi Angela.
I truly enjoy your baby post, been following them when u were pregnant, even though I wasn’t at the time, and… now I am. ;) In fact, I’m only going to be pregnant for the next… two weeks haha. ;) I followed some of your advice (got myself a snuggle blanket for the little one for example) and since I got totally put off meat while pregnant – your cookbook has been a savior! <3 Thank you! (Peanut Stew, Enchiladas, Tomato soup and Granola Bars saved my life)
I have a question: do you think you could share some ideas for baby food? I don't want to feed my baby ready made store bought jars (only when absolutely necessary) and would love any ideas possible. :)
Huge hugs dear and keep on blogging, writing and doing what you do, because you're great at it! I really hope you find time to reply to my comment.
Love from Poland
Karolina
You are doing exactly what I did decades ago. My nursing was totally baby led and they thrived in every way.
To me the worst thing for anyone to advocate is”sleep training” infants as young as 3 months.
SO VERY SAD!
Adriana is blessed to have your loving care.
I love your last paragraph about the baby books!!! Hear hear! I remember when my babe was a few weeks old I picked up ‘The Baby Whisperer’, and while some of the tips (ie. having a little routine) were generally helpful, ultimately it made me feel LESS competent as a parent, because if the baby doesn’t act or react the way the book says, what then?? I also strongly disliked her term ‘accidental parenting’ and I think the example was rocking your baby to sleep, meaning that this could end up being a ‘bad habit’ that you would god forbid have to continue for the length of their baby-hood….ugh. How about ‘instinctual parenting’? The only stuff I have read that has come close to how I feel as a parent is Dr. Sears. I generally have felt it to be gentle, common-sense stuff. I have actually put all the books away and much prefer to sort it out myself (unless, like you said it is a medical issue and then I talk to our GP). Love these updates. Adriana sounds a lot like my little peanut (who is just a few months older). Mine has never taken a bottle, and while she had a good sleep stretch between 8-12 months, she is now waking up all over again at 14 months (teeth, sickness etc. etc.). It really does all go in a blink though, so I am trying to enjoy every single exhausted, frustrated moment. xo
I’m so glad to hear things are working well in the feeding department. This can be stressful. Sounds like you are ALL doing great. My first baby didn’t get into solids much until after 6 months. The other two were interested earlier. Keep up the great work Mom and Dad.
I was so happy to see another baby post on your site today! My son is 6 months old now, and I have been following your pregnancy/baby posts since before he was born.
I have also shelved all the many (and there are MANY) baby books I bought as a nervous/insecure/scared first time Mom and just started going by my gut. Best decision ever. Trying to do everything by the book (literally!) just adds extra stress and worry in my opinion.
Glad to hear everything is going so well for your little family :)
Hi there,
First of all, I would like to say congratulations on your beautiful daughter. I had a baby girl 3 months after you, and it was really reassuring and fun reading your baby blog and seeing what exciting times I had to come. Just wondering if you could share some of you favourite baby food recipes. I don’t nesisarily want to make my daughter a vegan, but I do want to feed her the healthiest meals that I can. I’m worried though, that she is getting a bit bored of the same 5 or 6 meals I have been giving her. I know she would love your recipes!
I’ve said this many times…babies are not made with cookie cutters! These so-called “experts” who write all the books are well-meaning, I’m sure but NOTHING works all the time on every baby. Sometimes, what works today on our own baby may be met with total resistance tomorrow. My youngest is almost three and still co-sleeps with us. It’s the only way she, or I, sleep though the night. I was able to wean her from breastfeeding about two months ago and get her napping in her own bed, so that’s progress. Only you and your husband know your little one best and you’re absolutely right–if she’s loved, happy and healthy and mommy and daddy feel good about what’s going on, no one else should stick there noses in! Being a parent is HARD and we’re all doing our best and learning as we go!
Oh she is so cute! Our little one is a few months behind yours and I have been looking at your posts by the week – so fascinating so see how similarly babies go through things and looking at your current posts gets me all excited about what is to come with Chloe.
When Chloe was first born (because of a difficult labour) we had to supplement because my milk didn’t come in, but I haven’t really tried a bottle since then. Headed to a massage with my cousin next Friday and freaking out a little inside about whether or not she will rock a bottle. Need to do a trial run in the next few days. Eeeeekkkk.
I’ve mostly been a lurker on OSG but I read your post about Adriana’s diet and you know what? Ditto here! Haters goin hate…
Love this post. We had crazy latch issues at the beginning and, very long story short, I ended up pumping for a year. Took that damn thing with me everywhere, including to theme parks. Anyway, my point is that I realize now that you can hear the pump in the background of most of our home videos (along with our cheesy commentary)!
My little granddaughter did the ba ba ba sounds too and we capitalized on it by asking her what a sheep said and clapping when she said ba. People thought she was a genius when she did it very early on command. Your little baby sounds pretty amazing. I am looking forward to that new cookbook.
So happy for you! A suggestion – if you are able, prop a biggish mirror up against a wall that A can see and interact with. I read it somewhere, and my boy LOVED it probably through age 2?
yes! Trust yourself, love yourself. And your baby will too.
And you shouldn’t give a rats ass!! I nursed on demand, felt guilty letting my boys cry it out as babies (so i didn’t), I held them when they wanted to be held, rocked/nursed them to sleep, slept with them if that meant I slept! I never followed anything from a book etc, but did trust my Dr and myself…my boys are 10 and 14 and I am so glad I have those memories of them really needing, bc those days are SOOOO longgggg gone :) (In a healthy, growing up sort of way!) Yes, it was hard, but it just warms my heart thinking of those days. They get a kick out of it when i tell them how they cried when i left the room, how i couldn’t go grocery shopping without holding them, how they slept best if they were right next to me etc.. Following your instincts will make everyone happy!! You have a beautiful family!! And btw, I’m vegan but the rest of my family is not…and thats what works for us…keep doing what u r doing!
Hah! Every time I read these updates it is like it could be written about my daughter (currently 6 months) and I. I’m just nodding along as I read! Except my wee one got teeth from 4 months – it certainly has made breast feeding have its moments! We have top teeth coming in now….nooo.
Hi Angela, I love your recipes…thank you so much for sharing! I just wanted to know if you use any particular thing to cook your baby´s food? Thank you though
You have been such an inspiration to me. Love what you said about not feeling guilty anymore about all the “shouldn’t dos etc”.
Just when I think I’m nailing it I see a new email on bad nap habits and what I shouldn’t do and it throws me into a tizzy. I need to remind myself that my baby girl is happy, thriving and wakes up smiling every time. That is huuuuge so I’m doing everything right for her and our family. Who gives a rats ass what these non professionals praying on moms desperation and need for reassurance judgements.
Thanks for the gentle nudge I needed to block these emails from them and to be happy in my successes. You rock!!!
This is my first time on your website, and I NEVER READ BLOGS. But my twins are almost 8 months so I thought why not? I’ll take a gander on this post. Well let me just say that you are AWESOME and I can’t wait to dive into your recipes.
Hi Rachel – you’re so sweet! Thanks, and I hope you enjoy whatever recipes you decide to try first. :)
My wife is pregnant with our second child and we love to read your blog while in bed. Thanks a lot and keep up good work :D
Congratulations to you and your wife, Ben! :)